^Well So Long was almost as slow so what's to stop the next Sakura single from being slow paced? Mae Shika was only upbeat b/c of Yuko's personality. At least that's what I believe. Give Me Five was upbeat b/c they wanted to do a band concept and most bands don't play slow songs at least not as slow as ballads like Sakura no Ki ni Narou or So Long. Juunen Zakura was upbeat b/c of the composer involved. If I am recalling correctly it was the same person responsible for the score of Oogoe Diamond, Namida Surprise, and Iiwake Maybe and they finally changed that composer for RIVER. Most other Sakura songs are slow paced (Sakura no Hanabiratachi isn't ballad level but its still pretty slow, Sakurairo no Sora no Shita de is on a similar level, and Sakura no Shiori is choir-styled). In a nutshell if you want a slow paced song the Sakura singles are the place to look.

Hmmm , Why many people didnt like song like mae shika muka nee? in my opinion , that is a good song,so sad to remember that yuko is not member of akb anymore , so i think maeshika is good song for remember yuko :3 yeah so long maybe little bit boring but its so fun to listening that song in the late night :3

I would like for an upbeat song Maybe another River or Uza, I love songs like Koisuru Fortune Cookie but if those kinds of songs keep getting released it does get bland after a while.
I can imagine that with Mayu being centre for this single it might be another generic AKB song.

From the beginning until the end, I will remain by your side...Ai Takahashi fan, forever and always

Mayuyu is the new center of AKB now and it will be confirmed this autumn with her 3rd center position in a row. She got the oportunity for UZA but had to be switched out and this can't happen again. Well, It could happen again but it would not look good if she get removed everytime it becomes a bit more demanding.

Like they've been telling us over and over lately, the new AKB is here and Mayuyu is leading it. I don't think we will see anything demanding for quite some time. We will have to look to the sister groups for that.

In this new Mayuyu era who from top girls are at all able to pull out UZA level choreography anyway? None of the current AKB top members can be considered natural dancers. Takamina can keep up with faster moves, but she's not dance driven single center girl material.

So Jurina and to some extent that NMB front girl. I would imagine that would generate "buzz" among AKB fans if this would materialise.

I'm not sure Annin might be completely healed to appear in the 38th single, so that's why I put Tomu behind her. She made a biiiiiig leap this year in the election and I think management would be stupid to ignore her.

I'm all for kicking Miichan out of senbatsu already, but she's untouchable. And Yuria seems to be the new 4-center (even though she ranked down), so... yeah, in she goes.

SKE has representation in Jurina. NMB has Sayanee. HKT has Sakura and Sasshi... so yeah, everything is covered.

I'd kill for a Kaze wa fuiteiru 2.0. It's my all-time-favourite song and still 3 years later I'm amazed at how awesome it is.

The "dark single" is usually an event in itself because it's the single where the girls get to do something different, so I hope they do another one this year. Although if it's going to turn into the "different center single" instead, I would be open to that if they would make different types of songs once in a while. Just some variety would be nice.